Matrox MX02 smoothes KDVR’s transition to HD

KDVR in Denver, Colorado is "Where News Never Stops". Twenty photo-journalists are on-call 24/7, ready to cover breaking stories from a satellite truck, seven micro-wave trucks, and a storm tracker vehicle all equipped with Sony EX3 cameras, MacBook Pros with Final Cut Pro and Matrox MXO2 I/O devices. It’s a very-efficient, all-digital HD production workflow.

"Things weren’t always so streamlined," said Kevin Scofield, KDVR News Operations Manager. "Our entire workflow used to be tape-based with a mix of analog, DVCPRO and Betacam SX formats. The trucks had two tape decks and we couldn’t do much editing in the field other than simple cuts. Most of the editing was done back at the station on an Avid Adrenaline system. We took on the challenge of going digital, moving to HD, and trying out some new implementations such as server playout systems all at the same time."

"We took all the decks out of the trucks and put in MacBook Pros with Final Cut Pro on them so we could edit full packages in the field. When we went looking for a way to feed the output of the MacBook Pros to our satellite and microwave transmitters, we discovered Matrox MXO2. It does the job and was priced much lower than other similar products."

"Now, our workflow is very fluid. The photo journalists shoot with a Sony EX3 camera and transfer the footage to the Mac hard drive. They then edit XDCAM and XDCAM HD timelines in Final Cut Pro. While editing, the flexibility of the MXO2’s outputs lets us monitor HD video/audio on the SD monitors in our trucks. When the packages are ready, we play out the XDCAM and XDCAM HD timelines at full frame rate and full frame size directly from Final Cut Pro to our satellite or microwave transmitter using the MXO2’s SDI output. We save time not having to transcode and render to an intermediate format such as ProRes or DVCPRO."

"The simplicity of use of Matrox MXO2, its stability, flexibility and portability that allows us to plug it in and go without having to change settings, make it an incredible advantage. Another major benefit is its multiple input capabilities. For example, when we show up at a scene where others have shot their own video, we use the MXO2’s component or composite inputs to bring analog in and go directly out to our transmitter or to digitize to the MacBook Pro. With MXO2 we never have to worry about connectivity." PDF version